Chalk Dust
by TreeStar
Summary: Onesentence long stories, fragments of mostly unconnected ideas that never left the drawing board, but are a great cure for writer's block for anyone! Lots of ZoLu, but other couples too and I think every genre but poetry is in here somewhere.


This is some of my Chalk Dust. One-line story fragments that have not yet (and will probably never save for a few of them) made it into my stories. Most of them are unrelated and from all over the OP timeline, and while there's a good amount of ZoLu, there are hints at other pairings because of some scenes in the anime and manga that i've always found questionable. You should know that I'm also a LuNa fan, and that these fragments are from every genre from romance to tragedy to humor to simple character analysis.

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**Chalk Dust**

That night, after he rejoined the crew and they'd escaped in their new ship for the first time, Usopp and Luffy hung their hammocks side by side and had a silent conversation with their eyes and lots of smiles long after everyone else had fallen asleep.

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Deep down he knew it wasn't really necessary to worry so much about him, but to Ace, he would always be the little boy running across the fields back home, calling "Nii-chan!"

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Ace had a knack for identifying pirate marks, which was why when Luffy came running to him, describing the pirate flag with the three red slashes over the skull's eye that had just docked at their port, the older brother knew all of their lives were about to change.

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He humored the boy, taking him out a couple of times to help him learn how it was done, but from the first time the boy sank, Shanks knew Luffy would never be a swimmer.

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Half his crew laughed on the shore as they watched the boy sink for the third time that day, unable to float for even a second, and when he scooped Luffy out of the water and held him like his own child, he smiled, "I think I'll call you 'Anchor'."

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'Doesn't it just figure that the only person in the world whose punch can actually hurt me anymore happens to be my own Jii-chan,' Luffy thought bitterly, glad that the reunion they'd had in Water 7 that afternoon was over.

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'My grandson doesn't appreciate all I do for him,' the old marine thought as he watched Luffy run for his life from a hive of killer bees.

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Luffy didn't know why everything he did was wrong in his Jii-chan's eyes, but after two years of cheerful wake-up calls that left bruises his grandpa elected not to notice, Luffy began to sneak into Ace's room before dawn so he could wake up to a gentle shake instead of an enthusiastic punch.

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Ace knew that grandpa usually didn't mean to, but if he didn't learn to pull his punches when he was punishing Luffy for every little imperfection he had, the older boy was afraid he'd have to pack up his nine-year-old brother run away with him to protect him from the so-called "Fist of Love".

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As they waved goodbye while Shanks' ship departed yet again without Luffy onboard, no one could convince the small boy that the captain wasn't a huge jerk.

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They were throwing stones at targets in the sand at night when they were able to make out the long-awaited sails approaching their village again, and rather than run and alert the town, the excited D. brothers hid along side the dock to try yet again to launch a 'surprise attack' on Shanks and Ben when they walked down the planks.

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As she watched Zoro and Luffy fight over food in the Baratie, Nami reflected on how amazing it was that the first time she felt so at ease since before Bellemere died was when she was with a Pirate King wannabe.

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Though their grandfather had tried to explain it in a million different ways, Luffy had never fully come to terms with the fact that their father--whoever he was--had stayed when Ace was born, but left when Luffy came.

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Luffy had studied hundreds of wanted posters over the years while deciding on what his own picture would look like when he became a pirate, but in the end he finally chose to simply take Ace's advice and smile for the camera.

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Feeling a little sad that Ace had left him again, Luffy peacefully rode the rest of the way to Yuba on Zoro's broad back, and realized he owed Usopp a huge favor for throwing their round of Janken.

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As he carried Luffy on his back, Zoro felt the boy sigh against his neck and held him closer, knowing that he owed Usopp a huge favor for throwing the round of Janken.

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Vivi smiled at the two boys playing piggyback to Yuba, happy that even as they prepared for war with Crocodile they could find ways to bond, but mostly just glad that Zoro was keeping the captain away from the temptation to eat the rattlesnakes and poison cacti.

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Usopp jealously watched Zoro carry their slightly depressed captain through the burning desert, and hoped that they both appreciated what he'd sacrificed for them.

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Chopper was once again watching the clear desert sky full of stars when almost every nakama he had suddenly pounced and snuggled up with him to share his body heat, and he tried hard not to giggle and blush as he swore at them.

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Zoro watched his captain sitting on Sunny's head, kicking himself over a day so long ago when he, Luffy, and Koby had been sitting in a bar after stopping Axehand Morgan, and a girl had smiled and made moon eyes at an unobservant Luffy, and he'd thought to himself 'I feel sorry for the poor fool who falls in love with this idiot'.

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Luffy sat on the figurehead of the Thousand Sunny, forcing himself to look at the sunset so that he wouldn't blush at the feeling of Zoro's eyes on him, where they often tended to be anymore.

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Luffy couldn't help but laugh every time his nakama told him to act with the same grace his older brother possessed because he knew that they'd never seen Ace fall asleep in his mashed potatoes.

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At first he'd just pondered, and then he'd pondered harder, and then he'd struggled to remember the exact moment he'd begun to think of Zoro not as a first mate, but as something more, but after maxing out his brain, he finally decided it didn't really matter, and snuggled deeper into the arms that were keeping him from falling out of the hammock.

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Chopper had spent the afternoon warning Luffy in various ways that sneaking into the infirmary to sleep beside Zoro while he was hurt could do more harm than good, but Luffy had never been a good listener, and when he'd made it past the traps set up in the hallway to catch him just in case, Zoro had smiled and rewarded him for not listening with a long, tender kiss.

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The fight against Lucci had been scarier than Luffy wanted to admit, but as Zoro's eyes silently asked him what was wrong as they laid out on Sunny's lawn together, Luffy wiped his eyes and began to retell his entire side of the tale from the start.

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Smoker looked at the updated bounty in disbelief, and upon reading that the crazy Mugiwara had declared war on the World Government, he began wonder more pressingly about what Dragon's true intentions had been when he'd seen the boy off in Lougetown.

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After making the promise with Zoro, Kuina ran home with great vigor and began hunting for her whetstone to sharpen her blade as she thought about what she would say to her father the next day that would convince him to let her follow her dreams… and then she fell down the steps and broke her neck.

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Luffy watched Nami sail off with his ship and laughed at the way she thought she could get away from him that easily.

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Sanji could only gape at Usopp's attempt to take on the identity of that ridiculous mask, not because of how stupid the mask actually _looked_, though it was pretty horrendous, but because he just _knew_ that when Luffy got there, he would ask for an introduction.

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As he looked up at the giant octopus-balloon that was keeping the ship from falling to a watery grave, Luffy wondered if it would really _hurt _anything if he tried to jump on it.

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When the voices of his nakama predictably began shouting at him, Luffy acted surprised that they didn't want him to taste-test the unidentified fruit that Sanji had brought back, and wondered how they never noticed him getting into trouble until it he was neck-deep.

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First he made sure that everyone else really was asleep, and then he bit his thumb and tried to blow just a tiny bit of air into his bones at first as a test run, because he knew it was dangerous and that they would stop him if they knew, making this was one theory he had about his body that he felt he shouldn't propose to his crew until he was sure.

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He'd been thrilled to find the piece of wood, instantly envisioning something he'd always dreamed up, and as soon as he had gotten some alone time, he'd began to carve a slingshot as big as he was, all the while trying to decide what color to paint it.

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Nami rolled her eyes as she continued stitching, fuming all the while about how it was even POSSIBLE for someone to destroy a red tanktop as often as he did.

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It was plain, but shiny, and Luffy wasn't sure what had possessed him to buy it, as he wasn't really big into jewelry, but he rarely bought things for himself, and his defeat over Crocodile had been a big deal, so when he'd gone shopping after he'd woken from his battle injuries, he went ahead and got the bracelet as a personal milestone-marker so he could wear it on the next island, and picked up a spiffy wristband to boot--after all, pirates were _supposed_ to wear bling!

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A game that Zoro enjoyed throwing into his foreplay was one where he would quiz Luffy on his knowledge of various things and then tickle him till he screamed when he got the wrong answer on purpose.

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When it came to secret kinks, Zoro felt that Luffy had to be the cutest lover in the world; on days when he wasn't 'in the mood', all Zoro had to do was tickle his tummy to get him as hard as he wanted him.

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Sanji had learned long ago that even though Luffy didn't understand the concept of rules, it was impossible to beat him at cards.

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Usopp and Nami wisely kept quiet when Sanji secretly served them all venison that night…

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Perhaps the saddest thing about the entire incident was that when Luffy had finally rung the gold bell in the sky, he'd been too tired to really hear it.

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Whenever Sanji reflected on the fact that after defeating Ener, Nami-san and Luffy had been alone and charged full of adrenaline on a cloud almost naked together for quite a while before the two had come back down to solid Upper Yard, all he could do was hope and pray that they hadn't let instincts take over up there. :P

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Luffy had to wind his arm around several obstacles as Usopp tried to guide him with his voice from up above him, but before long the two boys were positively beaming with so much excitement as they read to name 'Skypeia' on the funny old map, that they forgot the ship beneath them was sinking until it was too late.

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Some of his nakama didn't believe in magic, but what they didn't realize that the moment he'd found them all, Luffy had put them under his spell with just his smile.

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After both had nearly died and then been kept from each other for a week while they recovered, the pair just wanted to be closer…closer…closer…

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Koby hadn't seen Luffy and Zoro since the two had first met each other, and now after a year the changes in their relationship were obvious to _him_, but he wondered if the nakama they lived with everyday had caught on yet.

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Zoro had never been truly scared in his life until he saw Vivi's father approach them with the lifeless looking form of their captain on his back.

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They had listened to him whine all the way through the burning desert, watched him drink entirely too much water and refuse to share it, dealt with his hallucinations as he'd burned up all of their energy stopping him, and now as the rain fell on Alubarna, they felt proud to follow him.

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AN: It's not much. Just your typical chalk dust, but some of them are kinda cute. I've had these sitting as little one-sentence storylines for the hundreds of fics that I'll never get around to, and others were just thoughts, but one-line fics are still fics, so I figured I'd throw them up for the heck of it. I'll add more now and then as they inevitably come to me. I have couple more documents full of these somewhere, if I can remember what I saved them under. 

But maybe these will help end writer's block for some of you guys. That's why I keep them. When I get stuck, i read some of my chalk dust (every writer should save their chalk dust for this reason) and get ideas that sometimes turn into new chapters for stories, or sometimes just turn into more chalk dust, but what the heck! Back to the drawing board!


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